


The Heart, Dreaming

by VespidaeQueen



Series: The Gravity Well [6]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Character Death In Dream, Dreaming, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 08:23:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2262684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VespidaeQueen/pseuds/VespidaeQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Justice and Anders agree to go into the Fade, misunderstandings occur, and Merrill has a few things to say.</p><p><i>Justice has tried to understand Hawke, from his limited experience with mortals, untinged by Anders’ own thoughts. Sometimes, he thinks her like Sigrun - lighthearted, bright and vibrant, utterly infuriating on occasion. But when Anders heart glows like this in her presence, the only comparison that seems adequate is Aura</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart, Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> Intended as something of an exploration of Justice, and specifically how he fits into this particular series that I am working on. A few things to mention - more so than other stories in this series, this one uses some dialogue from in-game, as it does cover the events of Night Terrors. I have attempted to deviate from exact wording as much as possible, while in parts using the general outline of a conversation that occurred. As this is based on _Night Terrors_ , there is the mention of death in the context of death in the Fade.

 9:33 Dragon, Mid-autumn

 

In the Fade, he had been massive. Limitless, confined only by his own will and design. He had taken form because he wished, spoken with a voice he called his own, existed within no confines other than those that he set, bound only by what bound all creatures born of the Fade.. He had been a creature of dream and virtue; there, he had been free.

He had been Justice, and the Fade had been his home.

Since leaving there, his existence has been one of increasingly small spaces. Kristoff’s body is a prison, though an intriguing one - memories and emotions remain as shadows within the corpse, and they become part of Justice just as Justice becomes part of that body. But it is small and cramped, and he sees the world from a decaying, rotting vessel, through ruined eyes that grow worse and worse with time.

He does not resent his time in Kristoff’s corpse. It is merely _different_. Smaller, yes, but at the same time infinitely larger - he sees a world he had only glimpsed through dreams. More than sees, he _lives_ in that world. While he misses the Fade, misses home, there is such wonder and beauty in the realm of mortals that he is all but dazzled by it.

He anticipates there there will be differences, when Anders agrees to share his body with him. He can only assume that a living body is different than a corpse, but he is so completely unprepared. How could he have know what the emotions of a living being would do to him? How could he have known the anger, the hurt, the fear that was bottled up within Anders, things he had hidden behind humor and sarcasm.

Justice is swept up by these things. They overwhelm him, they become him, they warp everything he is. For a moment, he is not _justice_ , he is something infinitely darker.

And then the world changes and he finds himself slammed back, locked within a mind, no longer seeing things as the sole inhabitant of a body. He _can_ see - he knows all that happens as they flee, as they run, as their footsteps take them closer and closer to _Kirkwall_ \- but it is a s though through a film, through dirtied glass. All around him, there is Anders - his mind, his body, his emotions.

Justice coils in his mind, he curls around his heart. He has a cause, he has a home - together, and together they are greater than they were apart.

But this body feels like a cage in so many ways, and neither of them know or are willing to change that.

 

*

 

He listens with interest as Hawke explains. The boy they had met several years ago - the boy who dreamed - is in need of help. Justice knows, instinctively, what this means, and he feels Anders anxiety as he realizes as well. They must walk into the Fade to help this boy, and that means so many things.

They have not stepped into the Fade since they joined. Anders fears it, and Justice has seen enough of his thoughts to know that he fears the small, cramped darkness of being forced into the back his mind. He fears it with a terror that Justice cannot name, and while Justice wishes to not always be the one with no control over their shared body, he understands. He sees the flashes of memory - a small cell, dark and abandoned and alone for so long.

Before Anders, he had little concept of time. Now, he understands far better what a year in darkness means.

Still, the chance to breathe in the Fade again is almost too much for him. He feels excitement, a swooping thrill that is an emotion he surely must have picked up from Anders.

“I’ll be going tonight,” Hawke says, and Justice listens, riveted. Her words come as if from a distance, but he hears each one. “I don’t know what to expect, though. Demons, certainly, but I’ve never encountered a somniari in the Fade. I was wondering - I’d like some backup. Merrill and Isabela agreed to come, but I was hoping that you would come as well.”

 _Yes_ , Justice sings with no hesitation. _Here is a worthy cause, to free a boy from his demons._

Anders is uncertain, terribly so. Worried, about what could happen to him in the Fade.

 _We must aid her_ _in this_ , Justice says, and he feels Anders waver.

“Of course I will help you,” Anders says. “After all, I wouldn’t want you facing down demons without someone to watch your back.”

Hawke lights up; her smile is radiant. “It wouldn’t be the same without my favorite healer at my side,” she says, and Anders heart turns over, growing bright with emotion.

Justice has tried to understand Hawke, from his limited experience with mortals untinged by Anders’ own thoughts. Sometimes, he thinks her like Sigrun - lighthearted, bright and vibrant, utterly _infuriating_ on occasion. But when Anders heart glows like this in her presence, the only comparison that seems adequate is _Aura_.

It is strange, because she is nothing like Aura, but the emotion is the same. Justice only wishes that he could speak with her, come to know her, so he could understand.

 

*

 

He can feel Anders anxiety in the moments before they step into the Fade - thick and dark, spiking wildly through them both. Now, Justice is the touchstone for both of them. He often is, a steady, constant presence by which Anders can ground himself.

In a single breath, they brace themselves. The spell takes hold and they slip from waking to dreaming.

Something shifts.

It is like when that vengeful stranger takes hold, when emotion warps the two of them into something horrid - Justice is drawn out, drawn forward, but this time his mind is his own. There is no anger, no need for vengeance, and the Fade calls to him, draws him forth. Anders gives a cry before he is pushed back, then his voice falls to a murmur.

Justice draws in a breath; this body obeys him. He flexes his fingers and they move. Around him, the Fade welcomes him; he feels at home. Save for the presence of demons lurking about the edges of the dream, he would feel at peace.

A step forward, then another, and he pauses. Wiggles his toes. Feels the flex of muscles untarnished by death and decay. A dream this might be, but the body is real enough.

Hawke stops a step before him, turning her head towards him as he stops. There is a furrow in her brow, her lips slightly open. Confusion, he thinks.

 _She’s probably concerned because you’re glowing_. _Bad things normally happen when we glow._

So he is. The Fade fills him and overflows, running through cracks in his skin like rivers of light.

“ _I...had not thought to return to the Fade like this_ ,” he finds himself saying as Hawke looks at him. She burns brightly to him; he smells the magic on her. She does not glow, not like him - she is no spirit bound to flesh. But she burns, a flicker of magic in her heart, threads of a dream coalescing around her.

“Anders - no. No,” she corrects herself. The furrow of confusion leaves her face; her eyes turn soft for some reason he cannot fathom. “Justice.”

She calls him by name. He feels something like shock.

“ _Yes. Anders has told you of me._ ”

“Of course he has,” Hawke says, even though his words had not been a question. “I just didn’t expect I’d be getting to meet you - officially, as it were - today.”

“ _There is no day or night here._ ”

He has the strangest sensation that Anders has just given a long suffering sigh.

Hawke is looking at him, eyebrows raised, lips curved, and he cannot read her expression.

 _Amusement_. _She is amused by you_.

“ _Come_ ,” he says, sharp and abrupt, before she can say anything more. “ _I can feel Feynriel’s mind straining. We will not have much time._ ”

“We never do.” Hawke follows close behind him as he walks forward. The others are there - the pirate woman smells of the sea, even here, and the blood mage smells of death and ruin.

He can feel the demons at the center of the dream, can tell where Feynriel’s mind lies. It burns, but the edges crumble under the onslaught of the demons; the center cannot hold. He turns one way, but Hawke turns another.

“ _The boy is beyond these doors_ ,” he says, and his voice echos. Hawke turns to him, but she raises her hand and points with a finger towards her chosen route.

“We’re going this way, Justice.”

She walks, and he does not understand her. She is going the wrong way, even though he has _told_ her where they must go.

He cannot leave her; the dream is dangerous, volatile. She is at risk as well; she is a dreaming mage, and a demon would feast upon her if they could.

She had wanted Anders there as ‘backup’. Justice is not Anders, but he can fill this role.

He feels relief from where Anders rests in the corners of their shared mind when he follows Hawke.

. Justice cannot understand what it is she is seeking, what it is she reads in the dream. The path turns; he recognizes these walls. The boy is dreaming of the Gallows, though there are pieces missing - the unfinished dream of one who has not lived within them.

Hawke walks through them as though she sees something he cannot; he follows close to her, not leaving her side. The blood mage is watching him, he can see the distrust in her eyes, but he has no kind thought to spare for one who would ally with demons.

The dream is wavering slightly; Feynriel’s mind made fragile by those seeking to destroy it. Hawke steps forward to a set of doors, places her hands upon them, and pushes. Beyond, the dream opens to a wide courtyard, one that Justice has been in. But there are no templars here, only -

“How’s that for a welcome,” Hawke says, and from where they are the entirety of the courtyard is in view. A demon rests in the center; as Hawke speaks, it looks up to her.

There is a harsh set to Hawke’s jaw as she strides forward to meet the demon. Justice can smell the trickery on it, the corruption.

That Hawke would speak with it is...troubling.

Demons trick. Demons beguile. They are everything he is against, something more deeply ingrained than Anders’ hatred of templars and the injustices done to mages. But Hawke listens to this _thing_ , and something roils up within him, something like worry, something like fear. Anders murmurs something to him, but he does not hear him.

“ _Do not listen to this creature._ ” Hawke glances at him, and that furrow in her brow is back.

“Justice…” she says, and the demon’s attention rivets onto him.

“ _Oh, what is_ this? _”_ The demon circles closer; as it does, it brushes past Hawke. He sees her step back and away. “ _What a tiresome little spirit. But ignore it; it is you that I make this offer to, mage.”_

“I’m listening,” Hawke says, and Justice grows tense and angry.

“ _This is a monster._ ” That she would consider this, when their whole reason for coming to this realm was to save the boy; in the back of his mind, Anders voice grows louder. “ _It asks you to sacrifice an innocent to it’s ambition. I cannot stand by you if you treat with such creatures!_ ”

Hawke is looking at him. He cannot read her expression; her eyes are wide, her brows drawn up and together, her lips pressed into a thin line. She pushes her head forward just slightly; he does not _understand_.

“I know what I am doing,” she says. “You need to step back, Justice.”

“ _I will not allow this_.”His voice has grown louder, but Hawke stands her ground. “ _Do not work with this creature, I will stop you.”_

“ _Don’t_.”There is a waver in her voice. “Don’t fight me on this, Justice.”

There is disbelief that washes through him, both from himself and Anders. She is going to deal with a demon, she is going to sacrifice an innocent for - what? The empty promises of a demon that takes more than it will ever give.

It has beguiled her, it has tricked her, and it has turned her mind from the path she should walk.

He cannot allow this.

In the Fade, he fights as a warrior; there is not enough of Anders at the surface to bring forth magic in the way that a mortal would use it. When he strikes with his staff, it is as though he wields a longsword once again, but here, in this realm, he is a piece of the Fade turned to fury and anger and _justice_.

Hawke is not prepared. She brings up her staff just in time, but the force of his blow staggers her.

“ _Stop!_ ” he hears her cry, but it is too late for that. The second blow knocks her to her knees.

Anders is screaming in his head.

Hawke looks up at him, and something changes on her face. Perhaps she realizes that he is truly attacking her, in that moment. When he strikes again, she is not there; she rolls, comes to a crouch several feet from him, and he sees her bring her hand down sharply.

A tremendous force grabs hold of him and drags him down. It is as though the body he wears has become heavy, too heavy to stand; he is slammed to the ground hard, the sharp impact of his skull against stone a loud crack.

Screaming. His mind is full of screaming.

He draws on the Fade here, in a way he never could before. He wears the body of a mage, and he can command magic. It chases her, catches her - brilliant blue light that tears at her skin.

He sees her face twist, sees her hand and staff fly out. Something slams into him again, hard and solid, and he is thrown back. He falls against the wall, staff planted in the ground to hold himself up.

But he falters. He is too slow, too unused to wearing this body, to unused to being the one to control it. He falters, and in that moment Hawke drives the end of her staff through his chest.

A terrible scream rips from him, Anders’s voice and his own. There is bright, white-hot pain in his chest, and it blooms within him. Pain, and then a loss of self.

He dies screaming.

 

*

 

The world tilts. It shifts and rearranges, and Anders claws his way to waking. When he opens his eyes, his vision is blurred; he blinks until he can see.

Within him, there is a great numbness. He can still feel it, her staff through his heart, though it fades with each second, turning quickly to the remembered illusion of a dream.

But it was no illusion, what happened. It was real.

He had died. She had killed him.

Within him, Justice is silent. Not gone, just so far within him, pushed down so deeply that he can barely sense him at all. He does not know what that means, that Justice has gone quiet. He feels...nothing. No half-formed emotions, no queries, no anger or confusion or purpose, _nothing_.

She killed them.

He brings his hand to rest over his heart. It beats there, beneath his fingertips.

“So you are the first to wake.” Marethari sits cross legged where she had been at the start of the ritual. “I had thought such a thing might happen; that the dreaming would prove too much for even those working together. Tell me, has any progress been made?”

Anders rests there for only a moment, then pushes himself up. The pain in his chest is only a phantom sensation now, a half remembered ache. He does not know what to say; his throat burns, he feels the urge to vomit.

 _She killed him_.

“Very little,” he says, and leans over, resting his arms on his knees and letting his head hang. His skin is cold and covered in perspiration, as though he has run very far. He feels sick.

Marethari does not ask him again.

He is off kilter in the worst of ways, reeling from the enormity of all that had happened. He had viewed it as a stranger, but it had hurt as though it had occurred to him. There has been such strangeness to being forced to the back of his own mind, and he had only just been able to endure it.

If that is what Justice always endures, then he can understand why he is so unhappy with their circumstances.

He keeps seeing, over and over, the image of Hawke thrusting the end of her staff through his heart, and he cannot seem to shake it, no matter what he tries to focus upon.

It take him a long time to realize it is because Justice is dwelling upon this, too.

He feels something from the spirit then, not words, just a deep sense of betrayal. He understands this; he feels it himself.

She killed them. Betrayed them for the promises of a demon.

There is a small noise beside him, a tiny shriek akin to the sound of a tea kettle. He tips his head to the side, still bowed over his arms and legs. Merrill stirs from where she lies, fingers scrabbling at the ground as she comes to waking.

The Keeper says something in dalish; Merrill responds in kind. Her eyes are rimmed red, and she looks as unrested as he feels.

“My son,” Arianne says fervently. “How is he?”

“Hawke is still trying to help him,” Merrill says, and Anders feels the most inappropriate urge to laugh. _Help him?_ No, she has made a deal with a demon and will sell his soul and mind for her own ambition.

There is a raw, painful feeling in his heart that claws up his throat. It chokes him.

Merrill looks to him with her wide eyes. “Anders?” she says, her voice very soft. “Are you…?”

She does not finish her thought, and he shakes his head.

“You?” he asks her, and his voice is hoarse.

“There was a spirit,” she says quietly. “You would call it a demon. I…” She swallows her words and looks at where Hawke lie still and silent. “I will have to apologize to Hawke,” she says, and that is that.

Some part of him, a dreadful, petty part, is justified by this. She fell to a demon, as he has always known she would. But the rest of him feels infinitely sad. He does not wish for anyone to tread such a path.

He just sits there, head bowed.

A moment, passes, then there is the noise of someone moving over wood. Merrill scoots across the ground so she is sitting next to him; close, but not touching. She doesn’t say anything, not a word, but despite everything - despite the demons and the blood magic and everything else - he is glad.

If not for the demons, she could have been the dearest of friends.

They sit like that, silently, for some time. Anders breathes in, long, deep breaths. Merrill is quiet, sitting cross-legged beside him. And Justice is silent save for the feeling of betrayal which sits in their breast.

There is a gasp then, and they both look up. Isabela snaps up right.

“ _Shit_ ,” she says, her voice breathy. Unlike the two of them, she looks bright eyed and rested. Like the trip to the Fade was truly just sleep. “And I didn’t even get my ship.”

“Welcome back, Isabela,” Anders says, and his voice is dry and hoarse, and if he hides his feelings behind sarcasm, well, that’s a bit of who he was from before peeking out.

Isabela barely looks at him.

“Bugger all of this,” she says. “I need a drink. A very stiff drink. How you mages do this, I’ll _never_ know. Kitten? You want to come?”

Anders has the sudden, sharp feeling of not wanting Merrill to leave. If she leaves, then when Hawke wakes it will just be Anders and he...can’t do that.

He could leave, too, but…

He _should_ leave.

Merrill shakes her head. “Thank you, Isabela, but I’ll wait here. Hawke shouldn’t have to wake up alone.”

Isabela pulls off her scarf and runs a hand through her hair. “If that’s what you want. _I_ will be at the Hanged Man, if anyone wants to stop by. I think Varric’s got a bottle of that Tevinter brew - you know, the one that will knock you on your ass? I think I’ll go convince him to open it.” She pushes herself up from the ground, long legs unfolding gracefully. “You want some, you come find me.”

She walks out without hesitation; the door clatters shut behind her.

“I wonder what she faced,” Merrill says softly, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. “It was a very strong dream; stronger than I thought. Feynriel is is great danger - I hope -”

Her voice breaks off and she stops. Anders glanced at her from the corner of his eye, sees her looking up at him with large, worried eyes.

“Do you think,” she says, her voice so soft that only he can hear her, “that she will be able to save him?”

His tongue sticks in his throat; he doesn’t know what to say. What can he?

“I think she intended to, when she stepped into the Fade.” That is all that he can say. The only truth he knows. Perhaps she meant to save him, but demons lead her astray. He had thought her stronger, he had thought her better - but he was wrong, so wrong, and now his heart aches.

Merrill sits next to him, not saying anything more. It is so strange, that she is a comfort - Merrill with her demons and blood magic and her views that are so counter to his own. He does not - _cannot_ \- believe that demons and spirits are no different from one another. He cannot and will not accept that, not with Justice telling him he is wrong, not with all that he has been taught and must believe for every time that he has drawn upon the spirits in the Fade to heal. But Merrill is kind, Merrill is sweet, and for some unfathomable reason she sits with him as they both wait for Hawke to wake.

Some part of him wants to hear Hawke say it. To wake and to say that she has fallen to demons, that she has betrayed herself and him and Feynriel, to tell Arianni that she has doomed her son. He _needs_ to hear it, her words of admonition.

When she wakes, it is with little circumstance. There is a soft gasps, one that draws his attention, but she wakes as though from true sleep. Rolls over and pushes herself up on her hands and knees, and for just an instant her eyes glance over him and she looks bright and well and rested. But then she looks away, as though she cannot bear to look upon him.

He can barely stand to look at her. When she looks at him, all he remembers is a staff through his heart and the pain of dying.

“My son,” Arianni asks, her voice desperate. “How is he? How does he fare?”

For a moment, Hawke does not speak. Then she takes Arianni’s hands in her own, softly, gently.

“He is well,” she tells her, and something twists in Anders gut, something curls painfully. “He has learned to master his powers.”

The lie seems to flow so easily from her lips. That she would do this - lie to the boy’s own mother after she has sacrificed him for her own ambition - is appalling.

She killed him and betrayed Feynriel and now she spreads lies as though no one will uncover what she’s done.

He doesn’t say anything. He just leaves, unable to be in the same room as her any longer.

 

*

 

The lantern above his door stays unlit. He is too angry, to upset - he needs time to collect himself, to come to terms with what has happened. To mourn the loss of someone he had thought a friend, someone he had thought he could trust, someone he had thought to _love_.

There is some part of him that expects her to come running to his door, as she so often has. He will turn around and she will be there and she will tell him - there his mind stutters and stops, refusing to fill in blanks. To allow any bit of hope that she hasn’t done what he knows she has will only lead to further pain.

Regardless of any amount or lack of hope, he does not see her that day. The clinic is quiet, abandoned save for him, and he sees no one at all until the late afternoon when he hears an almost timid tapping on the door.

When he pulls the door open, Merrill stands there. She looks better than before, her eyes no longer bloodshot and red-rimmed.

“Oh, you’re here!” she says as he opens the door. She is twisting her hands, fingers interlaced. “I _thought_ you might be, but I wasn’t certain. I was worried I would have to look all over Kirkwall for you, and _that_ would have taken too much time.”

“Hello, Merrill.” His voice sounds dull even to his own ears. “What do you want?”

It is a testament to Merrill that she doesn’t wilt.

“I wanted to see if you were all right,” she declares. She makes no move to enter the clinic, though, just standing there. Her hands drop to her sides, no longer twisting. “You left so quickly - everyone was concerned.”

“I’m sure.” Still, his voice remains flat. “Well, you’ve seen that I’m fine. You can go now.”

Merrill frowns, pressing her lips into a thin line. “I saw what happened to you in the Beyond,” she says, and Anders’ heart contracts painful. There is a pang of anger from Justice, simmering within his mind. “I know what I encountered there was hard - I can only assume what you went through was worse. I was only tempted by a spirit - you were taken over by one and that -”

A harsh laugh stops her. It takes Anders a moment to realize that the sound came from him.

“You have no idea what happened in the Fade, do you?” he says, his voice brittle yet sharp enough to cut. “You think what happened is because of Justice, don’t you?”

“He attacked Hawke. I saw him - I saw _you_ attack her.” There is steel in Merrill’s voice now; her head is tilted up and she meets his eye without flinching.

Justice turns over angrily within him; he does not like anything that Merrill says.“Tell me, when you took whatever offer a demon gave you, you betrayed Hawke, didn’t you? And you attacked her and she killed you. Am I right?” He doesn’t even wait to see if Merrill confirms this. “The difference,” Anders says, “is that _I_ didn’t betray _her_. She betrayed _me_ for a demon’s offer. So really, she’s more like you than I ever thought.”

Merrill’s face turns hard and cold, no trace of her usual warmth in it.

“I don’t know why I even bother,” she says, and she turns away from him. But she stops only a few feet away and looks back over her shoulder.

“I think,” she says, that same iron tone to her voice, “that you should talk to Hawke before you start making judgements about what happened. Because I think you’re very wrong, Anders, and you’re very bitter. Sometimes, you aren’t, and I like you well enough then. But right now you’re being horrible and I don’t understand why Hawke cares so much about you.”

For a moment, she looks like she has more to say. But she shakes her head and turns away and leaves Anders alone in his empty clinic and his _bitter_ thoughts.

 

*

 

He goes to light the lantern in the morning, needing something of worth to distract him. It is a chilled, cold morning; steam rises from the water far below, fog hanging heavy among the great rocks that surround the city. His fingers are cold, and he thinks that it will be a cold, wet, damp, _miserable_ winter soon.

There is no one waiting outside the door, though he anticipates there will be soon. On the days when the lantern is lit, he rarely has a moment to rest.

As he goes to light it, he sees something out of the corner of his eye and pauses.

 _Hawke_.

A wave of anger and hurt passes through him. It’s not all his own; Justice is angry and upset, disappointed and _betrayed_.

Anders stares at her for one long moment, and then he turns and walks back into his clinic, leaving the lantern unlit.

He’s not sure what he wants. Part of him wants her to go away, to leave him alone, and yet another desperately wants her to talk to him, to tell him it’s all a mistake. _You should talk to Hawke before you start making judgements about what happened_ , Merrill had said, and _Maker_ he wants to believe that Hawke will tell him something that will fix everything.

He leaves the door to the clinic open. He could have shut it, locked her out, but he...doesn’t.

There was a time when, no matter how hurt he was, he would hide it behind humor and sarcasm. It was safer to hide everything. Now, though, he has Justice. And Justice, no matter how tumultuous their relationship, allows him space to feel as though he _is_ safe to just _be._ He doesn’t need to hide his anger and hurt as much as he did before.

There is the soft sound of her boots behind him. “Anders,” she says, and her voice is quiet.

He takes a breath; it catches in his throat. Pain bubbles there, turns sour in his mouth. He turns around, and he does not bother to smooth his face into any expression but what he feels.

“So,” he says, and each word is bitter in his mouth. “You’ve given him sufficient time. Has your demon granted everything he promised?”

“ _Anders_ ,” Hawke says again. There is a pleading quality to how she says his name. Is that all she can say? Just his name? His heart twists in his chest and Justice, no longer silent as he has been since the Fade, curls up around the edges of his mind. They are angry, they are hurt, they are betrayed. They are heartbroken, or at least, Anders is.

“I have driven myself mad asking myself what it was. Power? Riches? As if you need more, but perhaps you need enough to buy all of Kirkwall.”

“I need you to listen to me,” she says, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t stop now that he’s started.

“What was it? What was worth turning on me? _Killing_ me? Did you even know that I would wake alive?”

His words sting, he can see it on her face. In her wide eyes, in the way her lips compress, in the sharp lines of her cheekbones. But he is bitter, he is so _bitter_ , like Merrill had said.

“Anders,” she says again, and she _needs_ to stop saying his name. “I need you to remember what happened in the Deep Roads.”

“ _What?_ ”

“With that demon, the one we ran into there. Do you remember what happened? What I did?”

Again, his breath catches in his chest. He remembers. Justice remembers as well, vividly, brightly.

“What are you saying.” He needs to hear her say it. He can’t just...he _can’t_. That little sliver of hope has welled up within him again.

“I played along with the sloth demon,” she says, and something breaks, something shifts, and he’s not certain if it’s him or Justice, but just those words are enough. Relief floods through him. Relief, mixed with disappointment - _that_ is Justice, he can tell. “I needed its help, so I let it believe that I would deal with it.”

“You mean -”

“Feynriel _isn’t_ possessed,” she says. “I told the truth to Arianni. He’s gone to Tevinter, or that was his plan, at the very least. There’s no one to train him here, and he cannot stay and risk something like this happening again. The sloth demon is dead; I killed it. There were no deals, just trickery. Like in the Deep Roads,” she adds, and he remembers. He remembers her and the profane, and Justice’s anger then, when they thought she was dealing with it.

“I don’t know what to say. I thought - I _assumed_ \- “

“You thought I was lying.” Hawke has a small smile on her lips, but her eyes are sad. “I know. You don’t trust me.”

“ _No_ ,” he says, so swiftly that he is surprised. Justice turns over within him, a question lingering. “That isn’t it.”

“Then what?”

“Justice,” he begins, and the spirit gives a murmur of discontent. “He can’t differentiate - it is not in his nature to trick demons. Even had I known your plan, he wouldn’t have listened.”

“Oh.”

He feels...calmer, now. The hurt is still there, though, a hard knot in his chest, and the sense of betrayal, while somewhat eased, remains. But the anger at thinking she had given Feynriel to a demon is gone.

“It is hard,” Anders finds himself saying, “to forget the image of you striking me down.” He nearly touches his fingers to his chest; they just brush his jacket before he lets his hand fall again, but Hawke’s eyes follow the movement. Her mouth opens, then shuts. She looks away from him.

“I didn’t want to,” she says, and there is no trace of her usual humor. “I didn’t want to kill you, or Merrill, or Isabela. Not in a dream, not _ever_. I did what I had to, to save Feynriel. But I am...I am _so sorry_ , Anders, believe me.” Hawke finally looks up at him. “And...is...can Justice hear me?”

 _What?_ Justice’s confusion drowns out even his lingering disappointment.

“He can.” Anders is confused as well. “He is me - he’s _always_ here.”

“But you’re both...you’re still different,” she says, then makes a face. “Oh, that sounds dreadfully inadequate. But I met him, and he’s not you, and you’re not him. I just want him to know that I _am_ sorry for striking him down.”

Merrill’s words come back to him again. _He attacked Hawke_. No matter anything else, Justice had struck first. That’s what Merrill meant, he thinks. Part of why she viewed it differently.

Justice shifts uncomfortably. _She dealt with a demon_.

He deals in black and white when it comes to demons, Anders knows this. It has bled into how Anders views the world, why blood magic - once something to be avoided for all the reasons he’d been taught in the Circle - had become something so utterly, completely repulsive to him.

“I did what I felt was best to save Feynriel,” Hawke continues, and her eyes drop from his again, and he thinks that her gaze has fallen to his chest. To where she stabbed him with the sharp end of her staff. “But I am sorry that it meant that Justice and I couldn’t work together, and that…” She stops, then gives a small laugh. “Well, it seems like the time’s just ripe for apologies, doesn’t it? I think this is the third one I’ve heard - not the third I’ve _given_ , mind you, since all the rest were people apologizing to _me_. Isabela’s decided she owes me drinks for the next month, at least. So there’s _one_ good thing to come out of all of this.”

Anders makes a noise, a scoffing in the back of his throat. “Drinks on Isabela? That’s…” He shakes his head. “That’s a bright side, I suppose.”

“I have to find one, you know. It’s in my nature.” She smiles at him, cautiously, before her expression softens again. “Was there... _anything_ bright about it? For you?” Then she makes that awkward face again, corners of her mouth drawing down as she bites her lip. “Oh, Maker, that’s ridiculous. Forget I asked.”

“No, it’s okay.” Anders pauses for a moment as her eyes dart to his. “There wasn’t any bright side about it, not for me. Though I suppose I understand Justice better now.”

“You do? That’s good, though, isn’t it?”

He shakes his head. “No. I’d avoided the Fade, Hawke, ever since Justice and I merged. I feared what it would be like - and now I know. It is no wonder to me, now, why Justice has come to resent what’s become of us. It’s no wonder he views it as a prison.”

Justice grumbles with discontent at this, but it is true and they both know it.

For a long moment, Hawke looks as though she doesn’t have anything to say. Her, speechless, is such an odd thing. She stands there, and Anders looks away, he turns away.

“I wish things had gone differently in the Fade,” she says then, and his gaze snaps back to her. “For everyone’s sake, but also I...would have liked to speak to him more.”

He doesn’t know what to say, and neither does Justice. So he simply nods, once.

“I…” he starts to say, but stops. Everything he could voice, every bit of it, refuses to come forward. “I need to light the lantern,” he says instead, and sees Hawke’s face turn confused at the sudden change, her nose and forehead wrinkle. “The clinic, Hawke. I need to open for the day.”

“Oh! Of course. I’m holding you up, aren’t I? You’ve probably got a line outside, what with it growing cold and the winter sickness starting and -” She cuts herself off. “I’ll go.” This time, it is her who turns, the heel of her boot making a shallow indent in the dirt floor.

“I’m glad,” he says when she is almost at the door; she pauses with her hand almost touching the frame.

“For what?” The look she casts over her shoulder is soft, confused. That stubborn wrinkle once again between her brows.

“I was ready to wash my hands of all of this,” he says, and he doesn’t think he needs to clarify. _Of her_ rests on the back of his tongue. “I’m glad you told me what happened. What you did.”

A small smile grows on her lips. “I’m glad I did, too,” she says, and then she is gone.

 

*

 

Night is the worst. Sleep worst of all, for Justice does not sleep. He rests within Anders dreaming mind, close enough to feel the brush of the Fade, but still so infinitely far away. Everything is black and cold when Anders sleep, and Justice can do nothing but wait and think until he wakes.

Tonight, he misses the Fade dearly, misses _home_. It is an ache within him, settling where he would have a heart, were he human. Settles in Anders’ heart, which is, perhaps, Justice’s own.

To have been within the Fade once more, only to be ripped away...only to die within it…

Anders did not wish to dwell. Justice cannot help _but_ think on it, on his death and the way all that was familiar was stripped away once more. To be pushed back once more, to be locked away within a body not his own.

Anders is right. This is a prison. But prison or not, he chose this. They cannot change this now. He would not want to. They have a cause, he and Anders. Neither can abandon it.

Still, he thinks of how he was in the Fade, how he spoke, how he was heard. Hawke’s face when she looked at him, how her brow had furrowed, how her expression had softened into something somehow achingly familiar. He thinks of the magic at her fingertips and the way that magic had torn at him. He thinks on the pain of a staff through his chest, the pain of betrayal. The taste of Anders’ heartbreak and the hope that had grown in him when Hawke told him what had happened. Justice thinks of all of this, and he thinks of Aura, and he thinks of Kristoff. He thinks of pain and death and love. Of stone walls and small cells and demons.

He does not know if they can trust Hawke. If they should. But he has lived within two hearts now, one dead, one alive. He knows what this feeling is that burns within Anders. It is familiar, and still one that he envies.

But Hawke deals with demons, even if she tricks them. She brings pain to Anders, even when it is all but smoothed over later. She is, so often, a distraction. _He_ cannot trust her, even if Anders can.

Yet he remembers still, her wish to speak to him, to apologize for his death within dreaming. And it is strange that he should remember this, just as much as he does the sight of her as she killed him.

Anders dreams, and Justice waits, and in the morning there will be more to do. But for now, he thinks and he _remembers._

 


End file.
